"The storm was hard upon us," said Matterson.
"And a cruiser lay in the offing," said Gleazen.
"It would be possible, then," the man returned, "that ye're not as big—not quite as big fools as I took ye to be."
Then, as if all had been arranged beforehand, while Matterson and the strange man and Uncle Seth went below to the cabin, Gleazen took me by the arm and led me away from the others.
"Joe," he murmured,—and I saw a new, eager glint in his eyes,—"Joe, there's great times coming. I've made up my mind I can trust you, Joe, and I'm going to make you my lieutenant. Yes, sir, I'm going to make you an officer."
I wondered what kind of story he would tell next, for by this time I knew him far too intimately to be deceived by his brazen flattery. It was singularly trying for me, man grown that I was, to be treated with an air of patronage that a stripling would have resented, and there were moments when I was like to have turned on Gleazen with a vengeance. But I waited my time. It was not hard to see that my patience need not endure interminably.
"You, Joe, are one of us," he continued, "and we're glad to take you into our confidence. But these others—" he waved his hand generally—"we can't have 'em know too much. Now we're going to-night to get things sized up and ready, and what I want to know, Joe, is this: will you—as my lieutenant, you understand—take Arnold and Mr. Severance and Captain North ashore to call on Mr. Parmenter?"
"But who," I asked, "is Mr. Parmenter?"
"He's an Englishman, Joe, and if you can sort of convey to him—you know what I mean—that we're after hides and ivory, purely a matter of trade, it'll be a good thing, Joe. Mind you, as my lieutenant, Joe."
Never had I been so Joe'd in all my life before. When Gleazen had gone, I fairly snorted at my sudden and easy honors. Evidently he told much the same story to the others, except Captain North, with whom Gleazen himself very well knew that such a flimsy yarn was not likely to prevail, and to whom Uncle Seth, accordingly, entrusted some genuine business; and half an hour later we gathered at the rail to go ashore.